It’s Election Day in Ontario. Here’s What You Need to Know.

Written by Alex Cosh

Good morning Maple readers. It’s election day in Ontario.

Before we get to a roundup of the key issues covered by our Ontario election reporter, Nora Loreto, we recommend reading this bombshell story from PressProgress.

PP reports:

“A trusted adviser to Ontario Premier Doug Ford admits relaying a message to the Premier’s Office about attempts to arrange a meeting between representatives of the Government of Ontario and the Russian Federation.

The backchannel communications involved Russian government officials, expelled diplomats, Russian corporate entities sanctioned by the United States, as well as Ontario PC insiders linked to wealthy Ontario developers.”

Read the full story here.

For information on how to vote today, take a look at this guide from Elections Ontario. You can find information on accessibility here.

Here are some of the key policy issues Loreto covered for The Maple this election:

Housing

• Ontario NDP Housing Plan Thin on Details, Leaves Out Previous Pledges.
• Ontario Election Platforms Fail to Address Roots of Housing Crisis.
• London Renter Receives No Support from Major Parties After Being Evicted.

Health care

• Ontario Liberals Make Bold Promises on Long-Term Care, But Will They Follow Through?
• How Doug Ford's Government Reduces Abortion Access.

Students

• Ontario Election Promises Ignore Student Calls for Free Tuition.

Gas prices

• Can The Ontario Government Actually Lower Gas Prices?

Campaigns

• Why Did Andrea Horwath Struggle at The Ontario Leaders’ Debate?
• Communists Seek to Grow Support as Major Parties Look Unlikely to Defeat Ford.

Loreto also provided a roundup of two stories she had hoped to cover but wasn’t able to due to issues with sources. You can read her Twitter thread on that here.

The only poll that matters is the one on election day, as they say. But according to the latest publicly available polls from Polling Canada, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives (37.7%) are finishing the homestretch with a healthy 11-point lead, while the Liberals (26.5%) and NDP (23.7%) battle it out for second place.

We’ll be back tomorrow with a rundown of the results. Stay tuned.

Other News

• Adults in British Columbia will be allowed to possess small amounts of some illicit drugs starting next year, the federal government announced Tuesday, but advocates say the permitted quantities fall well short of what’s needed.
• Faculty and students at public universities across Canada are warning of a renewed push by multinational for-profit education provider Nativas, which they say is making dangerous inroads in post-secondary education, The Breach reports.
• Canadian military veterans play an outsized role in anti-government movements, a shift that became more pronounced during pandemic restrictions, according to a report by an extremist-monitoring organization that tracks online activity.

North Untapped Podcast: In this week’s episode of The Maple’s North Untapped podcast, we spoke to Matthew DiMera, founder and publisher of The Resolve, a new journalistic project that is building a platform for Black, Indigenous and people of colour journalists to tell their own stories directly to BIPOC audiences — not filtered through a white lens.

Subscribe to North Untapped to hear the full episode on Apple,Spotify or Google.

Catch up on our latest content

• London Renter Receives No Support from Major Parties After Being Evicted.
• Ontario Election Promises Ignore Student Calls for Free Tuition.
• Canadian Media Has a Whiteness Problem.